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DANE COUNTY AREA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY


  Mailing Address:
  Dane County Area Genealogical Society
  PO Box 5652
  Madison, WI 53705-0652

Society e-mail address: widcags@gmail.com

Membership dues for 2013:
  $23.00/year individual or $28.00/year family ($8.00 discount if you get the newsletter only by e-mail)
  Membership year is 1 January-31 December
  Printable 2013 membership form (144 KB PDF file)
    Or go to our “Work in progress” new website to join or renew online


Society Organizational Documents (PDF files)
  Plan of Merger (July 2006)
  Bylaws (initially adopted August 2006, amended October 2007 and 5 April 2012)
  Policy and Procedures Manual (last revised October 2007)


DCAGS logo
Society Newsletters:
  April 2013 - DCAGS (469 KB PDF file)
  March 2013 - DCAGS (1329 KB PDF file)
  February 2013 - DCAGS (1035 KB PDF file)
  January 2013 - DCAGS (971 KB PDF file)
  December 2012 - DCAGS (853 KB PDF file)
  November 2012 - DCAGS (890 KB PDF file)
  October 2012 - DCAGS (1225 KB PDF file)
  September 2012 - DCAGS (894 KB PDF file)
  August 2012 - DCAGS (789 KB PDF file)
  July 2012 - DCAGS (849 KB PDF file)
  June 2012 - DCAGS (495 KB PDF file)
  May 2012 - DCAGS (436 KB PDF file)
  April 2012 - DCAGS (521 KB PDF file)
  March 2012 - DCAGS (644 KB PDF file)
  29 February 2012 - DCAGS (550 KB PDF file)
  31 January 2012 - DCAGS (299 KB PDF file)

Click here for access to newsletters published prior to 2012.

Note: Many (but not all) of the URLs listed in recent newsletters are “hot links.” If you click on the URL, your browser should go directly to the web page being referenced. (You must be using either Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5 or some version of Adobe Reader for these hotlinks to work.)


  President — Walker Crawford (2014)
  Vice-President — Jim Benes (2013)
  Secretary — DeAnn McAllan (2014)
  Treasurer — Joyce Peterson (2013)
  Immediate past president — Rollie Littlewood 
  Standing Committee Chairs:
    Membership — Walker Crawford
    Public Relations — vacant
    Program and Education — Donna Johnson-Schmidt
    Newsletter — Patricia L. Skubis
    Historian —  Sandy Zart
    Webmaster — Rollie Littlewood
        For elected officers, the final year of their current term in listed after their name
The Governing Board usually meets on the third Tuesday of each month. Contact the society president or see our monthly newsletter to get the time and location.



Upcoming Programs — 2013

Time: 7:00 PM, first Thursday of every month, unless otherwise noted
Place: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (chapel), 4505 Regent St. (intersection of Regent St.&Segoe Rd.), Madison unless otherwise noted

Meeting Date   Program Description  
3 January 2013  Family History Projects - Our speaker will be Lori Bessler, Reference Librarian and Outreach Coordinator at the Wisconsin Historical Society Library Archives. There are many ways to share the information you have gathered in your research. Lori will bring examples and help you to find ways to share your information with family members with various interest levels. The speaker has allowed us to post her handout (as a 51 KB PDF file) – click here to view it.
7 February 2013  DNA for Genealogy - Meeting cancelled due to weather concerns
7 March 2013  Visit to Salt Lake City - Our speaker will be Shirley Anderson.
4 April 2013  Researching Your German Roots: Tips for American Genealogists - Our speaker will be Antje Petty, assistant director of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (MKI). This presentation will focus on the special challenges faced by American genealogists who want to research their ancestors from German-speaking Europe. It will address issues such as language, finding names and places of origin, and Antje will offer suggestions of resources online and off, in America and in Europe.
2 May 2013  Newspaper Nuggets: Going Beyond the Obituary Notice - Our speaker will be Kathy Sparks. Kathy will explore the many items found in historical newspapers that can enrich the story of our ancestor’s lives. These items often go beyond, or may be a substitute for, the obituary notice. Finding our ancestor’s name in a historical newspaper is often a daunting task. We will be looking at some of the methods for finding the newspapers associated with our ancestors, whether online or in repositories.
The speaker has allowed us to post her handout (as a 22 KB PDF file) – click here to view it.
6 June 2013  Our speaker will be Jerry Apps / Topic TBA
Saturday 
13 July 2013 
DCAGS will host a “field trip” to the Wisconsin Historical Society library archives..
1 August 2013  DNA for Genealogy - Our speaker will be George Spracklin. He will be showing a PowerPoint presentation explaining how DNA sequencing can be used to trace ancestry. The three main types of DNA analyzed (mitochondrial, Y chromosomal, and autosomal) for genealogy will be examined with examples of how each have been used in genealogical studies.
5 September 2013  Speaker and topic TBA
3 October 2013  Speaker and topic TBA
7 November 2013  Speaker and topic TBA
5 December 2013  Speaker and topic TBA

Handouts from some earlier DCAGS meetings:
Tip Toe Through the Tombstones, by Ann L. Wells (5 August 2010). Handout (1 page)
Exciting New Developments at FamilySearch, by Maureen Brady (7 October 2010). Handout (15 “slides”; 5 pages) / Presentation (72 “slides”; 36 pages).
Have you tried…? , by James L. Hansen, F.A.S.G (4 November 2010). Handout (1 page).
Finding Those Who Served: Genealogy Resources at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, by Russell Horton (2 December 2010). Handout (1 pages).
Ways to Display Your Family Trees, by Pat Skubis (6 January 2011). Handout (1 page) / Presentation (55 pages).
Genealogical Organization: From Papers to Research, by Ann L. Wells (3 March 2011). Handout (1 page).
Lineage Societies, by Bob Stone and Ruth Simpson (7 April 2011). Daughters of the American Revolution handout (4 pages) Sons of the American Revolution handout (4 pages)
The Power of Yes: A Case Study of Norwegian Immigration to Minnesota, by Joyce I. Nigbor (2 June 2011). Handout (1 page)
Reading Genealogy Books on the Web, by Rollie Littlewood (7 July 2011). Handout (4 pages)
Branches and Leaves Filled in at Last, by Patricia Skubis (4 August 2011). Handout (1 page)
The Flavor of Wisconsin: History and Culture through Recipes, by Terese Allen (1 September 2011). Handout (3 page quiz)
The 1940 Census, by Pat Skubis (2 February 2012). Presentation as PDF file or as PowerPoint file
Getting the Most Out of an Obituary, by George L. Findlen, CGSM (5 April 2012). Handout (2 pages)
The World of Genealogy Webinars, by Rollie Littlewood (3 May 2012). Handout (2 pages)
Revolutionary War & the War of 1812, by Pam Anderson (6 September 2012). Handout (2 pages)
Introduction to DCAGS’ New Online Membership Features, by Walker Crawford (4 October 2012). Handout (1 page)
Using WorldCat for Genealogy, by Rollie Littlewood (4 October 2012). Handout (4 pages) / Screen Shots displayed during talk (18 “slides”)


We’re proud to be an affiliate of the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society
DCAGS is a proud member of the Federation of Genealogical Societies

Announcements of special interest to society members: 
Citing staffing issues, the Wisconsin State Vital Records Office announced in the fall of 2010 that they were suspending all search appointment opportunies from 1 October 2010 until at least 28 February 2011. This office did open again for onsite searches in March, but with a much tighter restriction than before on the frequency of search appointments. Each researcher is now restricted to four hours of on-site searching in a three-month period. Afternoon appointments are no longer available.

The Wisconsin State Genealogical Society is sponsoring its 2013 Gene-A-Rama conference on 5-6 April 2013 in Wausau. Periodically visit the WSGS website for further information as the plans develop for this conference.

Sally Jacobs, a local archivist who operates Jacobs Archival Services in Madison, has informed us that she has started a blog called “The Practical Archivist.” She describes it as “chock full of archiving tips and geeky tidbits for genealogists and keepers of the family photo album – giving away some of my best photo archiving tips at no charge.”

Each spring and fall the Division of Library-Archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society sponsors a series of genealogy classes; these usually meet on Saturday mornings in either the WHS Library in Madison or in the nearby Memorial Library. See Library-Archives Classes and Workshops for more detailed information. The six classes being offered in the fall of 2011 are “Genealogy is For Everyone” (17 September, Lori Bessler), “Ancestry.com” (22 October, Lori Bessler) [repeated 29 October], “Using Archival Collections” (12 November, Rick Pifer), “FamilySearch.org” (3 December, Lori Bessler), and “Online Genealogy” (10 December, Lori Bessler). Click on the title of any class for further details (time, fees, location, class coverage) about that class. Each class has separate registration, some may have limited enrollment. To register, download, print, fill-in, and mail the required registration form. Registration began 15 August 2011. A discount on the registration fee is offered to those who are members of either the Wisconsin Historical Society or the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society.

Are you a beginner at genealogy? Would you like to explore some (free) online guides to getting started in genealogy? Here’s one to try: Indexes to the RootsWeb Guides to Tracing Family Trees

Genealogy classes offered in the Dane County Area
Wisconsin Union Mini-courses
  Dates for next set of classes: three Tuesday evenings, 25 September, 2 & 9 October 2012
  Location: UW-Madison campus (specific location TBD)
  Instructor: Sherry Lloyd
  For more information click here

Some other genealogical links of special interest:
A bit of society history:
The Dane County Genealogical Society (formerly known as the South Central Chapter of the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society)
and the Computer Assisted Genealogists of Southern Wisconsin (formerly known as the South Central Wisconsin PAF Users Group)
merged in September of 2006 to form the Dane County Area Genealogical Society




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This site is maintained by Rollie Littlewood

Copyright © 2001-2013 by Dane County Area Genealogical Society. All rights reserved.
This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without our consent.

This page was last modified on 22 May 2013


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